The Society of Plastics Engineers will hold its first-ever Antec conference in India in 2012, SPE leaders announced at Antec 2011.
The conference will be in Mumbai, India, in November 2012, outgoing SPE President Ken Braney said during an SPE news conference May 2 in Boston.
Coordinating a major conference in India continues globalization moves for Newtown, Conn.-based SPE. India long has been a strong country for the society, and the India Section has almost doubled its membership in the last year, said SPE Executive Director Susan Oderwald.
The India Section has hosted topical conferences on specific technical subjects, but has never hosted a full-blown Antec, with a series of technical papers on a range of topics, she said.
Braney said the Mumbai conference should draw attendees from the Middle East, where SPE has a new section.
SPE officials also said they will hold its first Eurotec technical conference Nov. 14-15 in Barcelona, Spain. Eurotec will be collocated with the Equiplast trade show. Eurotec will be an Antec-style event, with several-hundred original, peer-reviewed presentations.
Equiplast and Eurotec are expected to draw visitors from Spain and other European countries, and from South America.
SPE leaders announced the first Eurotec plenary speaker: Kai Syrjälä, director of tooling and molding sourcing at Espoo, Finland-based Nokia Corp. His speech will cover mold manufacturing in China.
Braney said other plenary speakers will be from materials companies Sabic Innovative Plastics, Ticona Engineering Polymers and A. Schulman Inc.
Braney is managing director of Thermoforming Solutions Ltd. of Dartford, England.
In other global news, SPE has named Olivier Crave its vice president of marketing. Crave, who is president of O.C. Team, a sales and marketing firm in Vaux-en-Bugey, France, had been the European chairman.
Crave is now a member of the SPE Executive Committee. Oderwald said SPE is looking to target people at its vice president level to specific areas, such as marketing, to focus efforts of its volunteer leaders.
